Ramblings of a bi-polar mind

Tag Archives: heartbreak

I often write my blog sitting alone on my bed. Tonight it occurred to me that though I’m drawn to spending all my spare time in bed, it’s a place haunted by misery and pain. It holds the painful memories of sharing it with the person I loved more than anything. It is a constant reminder of the emptiness both in my bed and in my heart.

I am lonely. I hate admitting that because I consciously choose to make my life this way. I choose to exile myself from the world. But even though I choose this path, it doesn’t exactly make me happy. It’s so difficult to explain. I don’t like being around people – they don’t understand me. They don’t think the way that I do or feel the way that I do. So I withdraw from the world. I lock myself away, thereby creating my loneliness.

Why would I choose loneliness? I think it’s because reality doesn’t compare with my imagination. I know it sounds like I have incredibly high expectations, impossible ideals, but why would I settle for harsh reality? Why would I settle when my inner life has so much more to offer me? If I can lose myself in my imaginary world for long enough I can conjure up peace: both of mind and soul.

It gets harder to leave the sanctuary of my imaginary world. The disappointment of reality burdens my heart. When I’m in the real world I am painfully aware of my loneliness and heartache. I’m aware that I don’t have a connection to someone special, that my heart isn’t entwined with another. So it’s too easy to retreat into my fantasy world, where I can dream up perfect love and perfect acceptance.

This loneliness always goes the same way. I’m (half heartedly) trying to convince myself that I am in love with someone who … ugh I don’t even want to explain this because it’s too embarrassing to admit even to myself. He is a person who exists on earth. But he doesn’t know me, I don’t even really know him. We’ve not actually met, not actually spoken to each other – but I’m infatuated with his voice, his eyes, his crooked grin. Honestly he may as well be imaginary because he is just so out of my reach.

And it’s even more hilarious (in the most self insulting way possible) that I’m acknowledging this train of thought. Clearly I’m not in love with him. I’m just lonely, so I imagine and project these false feelings onto him because he is unattainable. And by falling in love with the impossible I’m protecting my vulnerability. Because in my warped mind it’s better to be hurt by loving someone who doesn’t even know you exist, than it is to entrust your heart to a real person and risk them breaking it.

Thus I am in a perpetual circle of hurt and loneliness. I justify my self-imposed exile with the belief that if I put myself in reality I’d only end up hurt and lonely anyway. This circular “reasoning” is so draining. I put the word reasoning in quotation marks – because clearly the turmoil inside my head doesn’t have even a single iota of reason about it. Nothing about what I have typed is reasonable – except maybe my admission that this entire post is unreasonable.

It was 1996, I was in the tenth grade and his name was Ben. He was tall, dark haired, with soft doe eyes, and he had this gorgeous smile where one corner of his mouth curved up higher. He was a little bit bad boy and that was really attractive to me – the Miss Goody-Two-Shoes. Of course this is a private school version of bad boy – what made him an undesirable (not to me, but to my cliquey school friends) was that he had to repeat year 10 and wasn’t of the same “social class”. Some people in my school were very much snobs it seems.

Anyway, he was in my homeroom; and we had our main classes together. Before too long I found myself totally into him, and it turns out that he was into me too. Of course he couldn’t just outright say it, instead he teased me mercilessly (you know all attention; even bad attention; is good attention). And of course my reaction was an overreaction because I was so into him I couldn’t help but react.

Eventually one of my friends (not one of the snobs) had enough of Ben and I circling one another. She (without my knowledge to all of this) outright asked him if he liked me, and he admitted as much. She told him to ask me out, and he said he would if he got me alone. So right before one of our elective classes; she drags me over to him under some pretence and then takes off. I’m left alone with him.

We’re both standing there awkwardly; trying desperately to make small talk, until one of us has the courage to make a move. Right at the last second I am the one to cave. I ask him out and he says yes and tells me that he was gathering up the courage to ask me out. We share a shy smile before we head off to our classes. I’m uncharacteristically a little late to my class; but I have the biggest grin on my face.

Now here is the totally awkward and fail bit. Even though I had asked him out – and he had said yes – I still couldn’t believe that he actually liked me. I had very low self-esteem, and even when faced with evidence to the contrary – I was convinced that this was all some joke on me. I was terrified that he didn’t really like me; and that somehow it was a practical joke, like out of Carrie. And so I became really shy, and aloof, and practically stopped talking to him – where before I’d done every little thing I could to get his attention. It was like I didn’t know what to do now that I’d had him. He got the impression I wasn’t into him, and the relationship was dust before it even got off the ground.

He resorted to being unpleasant towards me at lunch times; staring at me and calling out mean things when he was in his group of 11th grade friends. I took to ignoring him in class, and acting like he didn’t even exist. Our friendship had disintegrated because I didn’t know how to show him I liked him, and he thought that I wasn’t actually interested in him.

Then one day, one lunch time, he came up to me. He’s mustered up the courage to apologise to me, it’s awkward and adorable all at once. He says he’d like to start over, which of course stupid oblivious me somehow misinterprets. I say to him “Ok, so we’re friends again yeah?” and hold out my hand. Poor Ben has been unwittingly rejected, and limply shakes my hand with a dejected “Yeah, I guess…” and turns on his heel.

Suffice to say we never really talk again after that one. And for the rest of the year, and into the next (until he left the school mid way through the 11th grade) he’d always give me this strange look in the halls. At the time I thought he was staring me down to make me intimidated and uncomfortable – as if he was trying to tell me I was an idiot for thinking he ever liked me. But looking back with experience, I think his face showed something more like a forlorn wanting. I was unable to interpret back then that his expression reflected the disappointment of his belief that his feelings were unrequited. And my suspicious, self-preserving glares back at him really wouldn’t have helped the situation.

So now it’s time for another apology to another guy.

Ben, I’m sorry I couldn’t show you that I really was into you. I had pages and pages of diary entries filled about you, and had a major crush on you for a long time. However I was naive and unsure of myself. So I did the only thing I know how to do – shut down, and hide my feelings. I wish I’d been more confident – because now I’ll never know what your kisses taste like.

I’ve spoken about my thoughts that I’m an empath – in that I absorb the feelings and moods of other people. I am also naturally compassionate and understanding towards others – to the point where I have always been the one to whom people come for advice (especially on relationships which is funny considering what I’m going to write next!).

And yet I have a certain amount of obliviousness when it comes to a guy being attracted to me. It’s happened ever since I was young – and I’ve got many hilariously sad stories about it. Hopefully this story (about one of my many cock-ups in love) is something that you’ll get a laugh out of.

When I was in grade five or six, I was hanging out with a guy friend at a baseball park – my little brother had baseball practice and my friends dad was the coach. Some little 4 year old kid was following us about and copying things we said and did. And for some fun we decided to run away and hide from the little tyke. We ended up hiding down a small embankment.

We’re waiting there to see if the little tyke can find us, making jokes and giggling away like the silly kids we were. Then my friend turns to me, looking me dead in the eyes and says in all seriousness “I’ve always wanted to kiss you.” There is a pause as I process the words that just came from his mouth. Apparently I didn’t really know what I was supposed to do with that information because all I said was “oh really?” and shrugged in a really nonchalant way. Honestly, I probably would have conjured up a more emotive response if he’d revealed that he always wanted to learn Spanish.

So we’re sitting there in silence and, bless his heart, the poor boy tries to make another subtle move. He asks “Have you ever thought about kissing me?” Here is me still embarrassingly unaware that he is actually trying to find a way to kiss me right here, right now. What is my stupid answer? “Uh not really…” with another shrug. All he could muster was a tiny “oh…” and if I’d looked closely enough I probably would have seen the exact moment his heart shattered.

So, what was going through my head at this time? I’m not kidding when I say I was thinking “This is a really strange conversation to be having when we are supposed to be hiding from that little kid.” (Yeah cause that was his intention when he led me to that private and hidden area). I seriously, honestly thought that he was just making conversation while we waited for that little kid to find us (or get bored with looking – whichever came first).

I wish I had a time machine so I could go back in time, slap myself upside the head, and apologise to that poor boy for unintentionally rejecting what I didn’t know were his romantic advances. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him, I actually had a more than just friends interest in him. It was that I was so (and still am) so bloody dense when it comes to romance. If he’d just kissed me instead of hinting – I probably would have kissed him back. But unless he’d said “I want to kiss you right now. Can I kiss you right now?” I wouldn’t have understood that was what he meant all along.

So Glenn K. I’m really really sorry that I didn’t understand what you were trying to tell me. You should have just kissed me – that would have got the message through to my brilliantly dense mind!